'You said "I will never love you" — I was content to die being loved by you'

'You said "I will never love you" — I was content to die being loved by you'

Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n1102la/

A marriage proposal came to me.

My fiancé was a beautiful duke.

He enclosed a pressed white anemone in his letter. Since a bouquet couldn't be placed inside a letter, he had it pressed and sent to me.

The anemone's petals were so thin and delicate they seemed they might crumble.

I gently took it into my hands. I looked for a glass frame that would suit it and, being careful not to damage its shape, placed it inside.

Seeing the white anemone, I remembered the flowers I had nurtured in my hope-filled flowerbed.

Just like the flower language of the white anemone, my wish would come true.

You told me, "I will never love you," yet you loved me.

So I died—

Our marriage was by royal decree.

The young duke had avoided taking a wife for some time, and the king, growing impatient, commanded that my family send a daughter to marry into the duke's house.

He told the king he would not marry me, but the king would not listen.

"You will never love me."

He said that in the solemn atmosphere of our wedding ceremony, and the priest's face tightened. It must have been difficult to continue the ceremony with a groom like that — I couldn't help but smile wryly at the thought.

As expected, that night he repeated to me, "I will never love you."

So I said to him, "I will make an effort to be loved."

He pursed his lips in frustration and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Even though I wasn't loved by my husband, the duke's servants did not treat me badly. The female servants hired for me were all elderly; there were no women of marriageable age. They were all very kind to me, a young woman.

I think it was because my husband had instructed them and explained the circumstances; they understood.

The butler knocked on the door and asked permission to enter, and then I was allowed into the room while the butler waited outside.

"My lord."

"I don't recall granting you permission to enter."

He wore a stern face, and dark circles sat beneath his eyes. He seemed not to be eating well; his normally handsome face had become gaunt.

"For breakfast..."

"Tell a valet to bring it here."

"Won't you eat with me?"

"I have no intention of doing that."

My husband treated me coldly, never changing his expression.

"If you are so stubborn I'll cry."

When I filled my eyes with tears and glared, his gaze darted around at an incredible speed.

"A-all right... please stop crying...!"

I returned my expression to neutral with a small huff.

"Crocodile tears work..."

I murmured, and he heard me; he scowled in frustration and said, "Fake crying...!"

It seemed he was weak against tears—if I made a face as if my eyes were watering, he'd do anything I asked. It worried me a little how easily it worked.

Thanks to that, my distance from my husband gradually closed.

"Have you started to want to love me yet?"

"I will never love you."

He said it with the same sullen face as on our wedding night.

"But I like you just the way you are."

"Ugh..."

I smiled brightly when I said that. He still frowned in that resentful way, but watching him leave the room, I noticed his well-shaped ears were faintly reddening.

"Is this effective too...?"

I tilted my head.

Then he granted me permission to use a flowerbed, and I began to grow flowers.

"You could just ask the gardener."

He said that, but there was a reason I wanted to grow them myself.

"Wishing."

"Wishing?"

"Yes. I want to wish to be loved by you."

When I told him this, he snorted.

"No matter what you do, I will never love you. At best, you'll make beautiful flowers."

"Yes. I'll do my best."

I decided to cultivate white anemones in that flowerbed. Their meanings are 'hope,' 'expectation,' and 'truth.'

I listened carefully to the gardener's instructions on how to raise them, prepared the soil so the flowers would grow well, and planted the seeds while entrusting my hopes to them.

"Today your family came."

"Huh?"

I had stayed at the mansion. The fact that they weren't called meant my family had been told not to inform me. They likely assumed I would not listen to them.

"They cried and bowed their heads."

"I see..."

"They asked for a divorce... They said they'd be fine even if the family was stripped of its title..."

I was the daughter of a nobility on the brink of ruin. Repeated droughts had made it impossible to manage our lands.

The king had commanded I marry into the duke's household in exchange for saving our family.

"And... your younger brother said... 'murderer'..."

"—!"

Those cruel words made me pale and I bowed my head, "I'm so sorry!"

"I will use the duke's money to help your family, and I will speak to His Majesty. You should return to your family... Your younger sister was crying silently the whole time. Your family loves you. Isn't that enough?"

He averted his eyes from me.

"I cannot return home..."

I clenched my fist and held a stubborn stance.

"This marriage is by royal command. While your husband lives, your family will be protected under his patronage, but there is no guarantee that protection will remain after he passes."

If the royal command was broken, one might be held responsible and stripped of title. Perhaps thinking of that, my husband did not argue with me.

"My family owes you an apology. Next time they come I'll send them away — please let me know."

"Fine. It's just that I don't have to love you."

Usually when he said "I will not love you," I would respond, "But I love you so much," yet that time I could not find words to reply.

"Oh? Going out?"

He rarely went out, but today his attire seemed different from usual.

"Ah. The king summoned me."

"I see. Please be careful."

I bowed my head, and he left, saying "I'll be back."

Less than an hour later the butler called, "A visitor."

Visitors were rare at the duke's mansion—my husband generally sent people out to deal with matters personally.

"To see me?"

I wondered if it might be my family again and thought of what excuses I would make. When I entered the receiving room, the king who had summoned my husband was waiting inside. I immediately performed a lady's curtsy.

"Sorry to come suddenly."

"That's all right... Your husband should still be at the palace..."

When I said that with some bewilderment, the king replied, "I know."

So what he wanted to say was something he didn't want my husband to overhear.

"How is he? He seems to have been feeling better recently — do you think he'll come to love you?"

My husband's gaunt cheeks had been regaining their previous handsomeness since we married. He was eating when we dined, and sleeping soundly at night.

"He insists he will never love me."

"I see. Saying it and feeling it are not necessarily the same."

"I hope that's true..."

There was one more condition besides marrying into the duke's family in exchange for saving my home.

That condition was that I would become a wife loved by my husband. Since he never showed it by word or action, I didn't know whether I was loved.

"So, here's my request... I told him too, but he wouldn't accept it..."

"Yes?"

I braced myself to hear what the king would ask.

"Although I went all the way to the palace, it was for something that could have been handled at the mansion..."

My husband grumbled about a needless trip.

"My lord."

"Yes?"

"May I come to your room tonight?"

"Huh...?"

He widened his eyes and froze, then snapped back after a few seconds.

"Of course not!"

"Right...!"

The king's request was that we should conceive a child.

He said it could be done even without love.

Over three years of marriage I had told my husband "I like you" and "I love you" every day.

At first it was from a desperate desire to be loved, but saying those words made me truly fall in love with him.

So I begged him with tears.

"If I cannot be loved, then at least let me have your child."

This time it wasn't fake crying.

He grimaced and said, "No."

He wanted our marriage to remain 'white' — a marriage that could be evidenced as unconsummated by medical proof.

Later, if I were to remarry, being able to show proof of a white marriage would make remarriage more likely.

"Since I already love you, I cannot remarry someone else!"

When I pleaded tearfully, his face showed pain.

"I don't love you, so you don't need to love me either."

He said that without meeting my eyes. It was a painful rejection.

I visited his room every night and cried, "I like you," "I've fallen in love with you."

He must have been annoyed by my nightly visits, but he held me in his arms.

"I don't want to see you cry."

His embrace was very warm.

In the end, during our three years of marriage I gave birth to two children.

Even with the burden of making the children fatherless, he yielded to my wishes.

Still, he never once said "I love you" to me. Not even "I like you."

Yet I was happy.

His cold demeanor always came from thinking of me. Knowing that, I grew to love him.

What he felt for me would become clear in a few months.

Then I gradually began to lose my appetite. Whenever I tried to eat, I would vomit.

Night after night, I could not sleep. Not being able to eat or sleep built up stress, but I tried to keep myself composed and live peacefully. I treasured the dwindling time with our two children.

While my body grew weaker day by day, the white anemones in the garden were vibrant and alive.

They flourished with the light spring breeze. The wind that flowed from among the white anemones felt refreshing, tinged with a small, poignant sadness.

Their slender stems swayed in the breeze and I worried the delicate petals might fall away at any moment.

Butterflies came seeking nectar, flitting happily from flower to flower; the dew-dappled anemones brightened with the sunlight.

"Mommy?"

"Flowers. They're beautiful."

"Flowers?"

First came a daughter, who gazed at the anemones with eyes like morning dew.

While watching the butterflies, the eight-month-old son in my arms started to fuss and babble.

"Are you getting bored? Shall we head back?"

"Yes."

It was a blessing to have children. They were truly adorable.

This life had but a little time left. My chest ached with bittersweet sorrow.

And my husband, whenever time permitted, came to my room.

Each day he would say, "I don't love you"—coming to tell me so in person.

"It will be clear within a month whether you loved me."

One month from then would be his twenty-fifth birthday.

None of the household servants prepared a celebration.

He had increasingly spent days away from the mansion before, but now was visiting my room whenever he was home. He looked pained whenever he saw me.

One week before his birthday, my husband declared he would die.

Like a spoiled child, he shouted, "If you die, then I will die first. No one is to stop me!"

My husband had once been the crown prince.

A certain young lady had pressed herself upon him. He rejected her, and in resentment she cast an evil curse.

In our country and the neighboring nations, people believe in reincarnation. When life ends, the soul is reborn anew. However, suicide is deemed a grave sin: a soul that commits suicide falls into hell and cannot be reborn.

No matter how painful this life is, believers in reincarnation do not choose suicide. To fall into hell is terrifying because there is no hope for a new life.

An evil curse can only be invoked using the blood of a suicide.

The young lady who cursed the prince was proud and difficult, unmarried, and slowly grew to believe that, because of some flaw, her parents would never arrange her marriage. She seemed to imagine that her only chance to become the prince's bride was to persist. With intense delusion, she forced herself upon the prince and was violently rejected; enraged, she resorted to a deadly curse.

"If the prince loves someone, the loved one will die. If he loves no one, the prince will die. On his twenty-fifth birthday, the prince will taste despair."

Curses rarely work, and even if they did, the one who enacted the curse using suicide would fall into hell and be denied rebirth. Few would dare such a thing.

But the twenty-five-year-old lady used the blood of her suicide to cast that curse, hoping the prince would despair when she reached her age.

Her parents were executed and their house abolished after she cursed the prince.

Against the odds, the high-risk curse succeeded and consumed the prince's body.

The royal family brought many exorcists, but they could not undo the curse.

The cursed crown prince renounced succession to his younger brother and stepped down to become a subject. He became a duke for life.

After that, my husband shut himself away in his given estate. He kept only male servants to ensure he wouldn't fall in love, refrained from going out, and conducted state business from within the house by sending others to verify matters on-site.

The king grew impatient with his son's lifestyle.

Three years ago, in despair, I visited a certain show venue intending to die.

At that venue everyone wore masks. The fine clothing made it clear that wealthy people gathered there.

A decadent show was happening: a slave auction.

I did not intend to become a slave. It is common for daughters of impoverished nobles to be sold when fortunes decline, but even a high bidding wouldn't be enough to rescue a nearly ruined estate.

My mother was ill; we could no longer afford to buy medicine. People on my land were starving. My younger brother had to withdraw from the noble academy due to lack of funds.

My younger sister was about to become a courtesan to help the family. She was still underage; I couldn't allow that. And the pay of a courtesan would not be enough to save us all.

To obtain a large sum quickly, there was no choice but this method.

"Heh heh, when you sell your suicide, knowing the gravity and horror of such a sin, the performance reaches its peak. We'll put the highest value on your death."

At the slave auction there was a grotesque spectacle that treated suicide as entertainment.

There I decided to offer my life.

I would choose suicide against God; if it would save everyone, then I would do it.

Publicly, it would be handled as an accidental death, they told me.

Suicide terrified me — the afterlife held no new life, only eternal hell.

Then there was the matter of how to receive the reward when giving my life. I steeled myself to avoid being cheated and was reviewing the contract with the slaver when a commotion outside erupted. The slaver opened the door, and knights rushed in, capturing the slaver for illegal slave trading and facilitating suicide.

Of course I was arrested and thrown into a cell. I had been desperate not to let my sister become a courtesan and regretted acting so short-sightedly when my family was in crisis.

"I'm sorry. Father... Mother..."

At that moment, a richly dressed middle-aged man appeared in front of the cell.

"You intended to sell your life?"

"Yes..."

"Then will you use that life for my son?"

"Eh...?"

I contracted with the king.

I would die loved by my husband. My husband would love me and survive.

This would save my family.

Yet I worried whether I was suitable, and asked the king, "Is it really all right to choose me?"

"Your chosen means are not good, but your love for your family and people is admirable. You are pleasing to the eye and my son will surely like you."

His praise gave me some confidence.

"Thank you for your kind words."

"Well, my suggested method is hardly a good one... But for the sake of the child and the country, I will play the devil."

The king seemed determined and clenched his fist hard.

"I will fulfill my duty to the end."

Thus I married my husband.

In our country, we have agnatic primogeniture, and the firstborn's bloodline takes precedence.

That is why the king asked me to bear children; our children might one day be brought to the palace as prince and princess. Perhaps my husband could return to being crown prince. That would be right — it was his rightful destiny.

When my health began to decline, my husband invited my family to dinner. Before the meal he gave us a moment alone — my family and I.

"She's so lovely. You were once like this, but it passed in the blink of an eye..."

My mother sat my daughter on her lap and gave her sweets; though she had been ill, treatment had apparently cured her.

The king and my husband had apologized and explained matters repeatedly to my family.

I told them I had no regrets; I was very happy and I loved my husband.

"Thanks to the doctor the duke arranged, your illness was cured."

"The dam the duke helped fund to prevent drought will soon be complete. The people on your land are being aided by the crown..."

My brother, holding my son, could return to the noble academy and would soon graduate; my sister, who had been crying, had made her debut in society last year.

"Originally, sister might have been jailed, our family ruined, the land dried up, and the townspeople starving. Mother might not have survived. But now... even if we can't fully forgive, it's over."

Because I had made contact with slavers intending to sell my suicide, the king's arrangement allowed me to avoid charges.

Everyone wore resigned, wry smiles; they were sorry I had caused them such distress.

"And the duke says he won't love you, so you needn't worry..."

My son giggled as my brother lifted him high.

"Even if he said 'I don't love you' with that face, it's not convincing..."

My brother muttered as he lowered the child.

"Sis... ugh..."

My sister finally reached her limit and clung to me, tears streaming down her face.

Either I or my husband would die. No one spoke of it. Yet our family dinner felt warm and peaceful.

"You don't like me. I don't love you, so don't die."

He had been absent often, but now came to my room every day.

He appeared to be searching for a cure for the curse, but seeing him hold my hand with a strained expression suggested there was none.

I had been ready to die for three years.

Having loved him, I didn't want him to die. I wanted him to survive, and thus wanted to be loved by him.

My body weakened; I could hardly leave my bed. Imagining the outcome a week hence was not hard.

"No. Don't die! Don't die! I don't love you."

He shouted desperately.

"If you die, I'll die first! No one will stop me!"

When he said that, I croaked, "No."

"Reincarnation... I hope to meet you again someday... the anemone flowers."

I invested hope in the anemone flowers—that even in death we might be reunited.

"!..."

My husband trembled, shocked, and then collapsed to his knees in resignation, his hands falling limp.

"I don't... love you..."

He murmured, and tears spilled from his eyes.

On his twenty-fifth birthday, I died.

I died loved by him. I was content.

The world I was reborn into also preaches reincarnation. Souls are said to be cleansed and memories of a previous life are gone.

However, I retain memories of my previous life. Perhaps God forgot to wash my soul.

Having loved deeply in my last life, I had been hesitant about marriage in this life.

Reincarnated as a nobleman's daughter — an earl's daughter — I was led by my father's instructions to attend society nights every weekend to seek a marriage partner.

But I would slip away from the gatherings to search the garden for white anemones and indulge in memories of my previous life.

How did my children grow? Did my family resent my husband? Did he live out his life?

When I sank into such sentiment, my vision blurred.

I did not notice someone watching me from a distance.

I sighed — I had to return to the venue before my father scolded me.

"Chelsea, a marriage proposal! And your suitor is Duke Lumière!"

When a proposal arrived, my father rejoiced.

The suitor was a handsome duke.

At twenty-two he was a young duke who had refused most suitors until now; why did he suddenly propose to our unconnected family?

When a proposal comes, my father always seeks my opinion. Up until now I'd declined proposals from lesser families, but since this was from a duke, I could not refuse outright and my father told me to attend the meeting without asking my will.

Included with the duke's letter was a note addressed to me, apologizing for the sudden proposal.

When I took the pressed white anemone enclosed, a hot thrill pulsed through me.

I checked the name written on the envelope.

I must meet him...!

I was seized by that impulse.

I gazed at the pressed anemone in its glass case, waiting for the day.

When I met the duke, I opened my eyes in surprise. Though I should have been reborn, he had the same face as my husband.

He recognized me and narrowed his eyes.

"Miss Chelsea. Allow me to show you our gardens. At this time of year our white anemones are in full bloom."

"Ah... yes..."

I could only give a pathetic, pitiful reply.

In front of the flowerbed where the white anemones bloomed, he asked,

"If I told you 'I will never love you,' what would you do?"

The spring breeze stirred the anemones. My heart thudded. Butterflies fluttered, urging for an answer.

"I will make the effort to be loved."

I looked straight at him and answered earnestly.

He broke into a radiant smile — a sight I had never seen before.

He pulled me close and embraced me tightly.

"I love you, Chelsea...! I always have. I loved you from long ago!"

I quietly wrapped my arms around his back and smiled.

"Yes. I always knew you loved me, Avell..."

It seemed God had really forgotten to wash our souls; our names were the same in this life too.

The wish I placed in the white anemone had come true.

Author's Note

Thank you for reading this rough piece.

I'd be delighted to receive ratings and impressions.